Not everyone has a Back 40. Many urban gardeners are working with aggressive space constraints (“Patio 4?” anyone?) but still want the joy of planting, harvesting and cooking homegrown veg. For these gardeners, container growing is sometimes the best or only option.
Nearly every crop that can be grown in ground can also be grown in containers. I grow a container demo garden every year at the front of my house to show passers-by what can be done and have successfully harvested broccoli, kale, summer squash, beans, herbs, strawberries and greens of all kinds from a few pots at the front of the driveway.
In my cool-summer, maritime climate I find that real heat lovers like eggplant often do better – a lot better – in containers than in-ground, and so even though I have a large (by urban standards) garden, I still choose to grow some crops in containers.
The trick to container gardening is in knowing which varieties of each crop are going to thrive in that environment, and setting up your containers well. This means using appropriate size pots and potting mixes, and providing the right water and nutrition for your plants. Container growing also means taking responsibility for more of the plants needs as compared to in-ground growing – that little seedling is counting on you for food and water because it can’t seek out deeper, moisture-retentive soil.
With those considerations in mind, growing a whole garden worth of food from containers isn’t hard – it just requires a little know-how.
Giveaway!
High Mowing Organic Seeds (my favorite seed house and a sponsor of this blog) is offering one NW Edible reader the book The Bountiful Container plus the High Mowing Organic Seeds Container Garden Collection.
The Bountiful Container is a real classic in the How To category of garden books. It covers soil and potting mixes, sizes of pots needed for various edibles, best varieties, how to combine edibles in containers and talks about the full range of fruit and veg you can grow in a pot and a lot more. It’s an information rich book.
High Mowing’s Container Garden Collection combines ten of the best varieties of vegetables for container culture into one pack. It includes one packet each of:
- Nasturtium Mix
- Genovese Basil
- Santo Cilantro
- Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomato
- Ring-o-Fire Pepper
- Sugar Ann Snap Pea
- High Mowing Mesclun Mix
- Dinosaur Lacinato Kale
- H-19 Little Leaf Cucumber
- Yaya Carrot
And because these are High Mowing Seeds, everything is certified organic. These varieties make a nice collection for a warm-weather container garden, but several (the cilantro, peas, mesclun, kale and carrots) will continue to thrive deep into fall or even overwinter in mild climates like the Pacific Northwest.
Together, these two items have a retail value of $45 and will give you the knowledge and varieties you need to grow hundreds of dollars worth of organic vegetables in a small space. High Mowing will be giving both of them to one lucky container-gardening winner.
To enter to win, sign up for the monthly High Mowing Newsletter, The Seed Bin, then come back here and leave a comment below letting me know what fruit or veggies you grow in containers.
About the High Mowing Newsletter: this is not some schlocky spam email thing, guys, I promise. Every month High Mowing sends out one newsletter with great, truly useful garden information. I learn a ton from the newsletter.
In the past they’ve sent along tips for doing at-home seed germination tests, information and great stories on specific varieties of vegetables, how to care for garden tools, how to jump-start the potato growing season and even tips for container gardening. They also run periodic giveaways for stuff you’d actually want – like gardening books and gift certificates for organic seeds.
High Mowing follows best practices for emailing, so you don’t need to worry about them selling or trading your info, and of course you can unsubscribe at any time. But honestly, I don’t think you’ll want to. I look forward to the helpful tips in The Seed Bin every month and I bet you’ll feel the same.
This contest is sponsored by High Mowing Organic Seeds and is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only. Contest open until Wednesday, April 16th, 8 PM PST. Winner will be notified by email. If the winner fails to respond within 24 hours, a new winner shall be drawn. Good luck everyone!
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I’ve grown cherry tomatoes, pole beans, salad greens, and herbs in large terra cotta pots on my patio. Has anyone tried growing in garden fabric bags? I’ve wanted to try potatoes in them.
One year I just opened up the top of a bag of potting soil, punched a few drainage holes down below and grew my tomatoes in each bag. Easy way to get a new garden started.
Currently I have two blueberries, and four strawberries in pots on my very small deck. I was hoping to add mint this spring. I tried broccoli, but I think my pot was too small, because it started dieing as soon as it put out leaves last September.
When I chose my plants, I chose for things we couldn’t afford normally. (except the broccoli, which was a case of me hating it and hoping I’d like homegrown better.) Tomatoes are cheap in Tennessee, so are carrots, and most of the common veggies. Blueberries and strawberries were my favorite treats growing up.
Signed upnfornthe newsletter. 🙂
I grow Yellow Pear tomatoes in my patio container outside my front door. Most of them never
make it inside as I eat them (sun warmed) when I enter and exit my house. I also have a strawberry pot filled with Rosemary, Thyme and Sage.
I grow eggplant, a tomato, lettuce and a few herbs, especially mint in containers.
I’ve tried pole beans and tomatoes with luck so far. I want to try lettuce next.
I love High Mowing, but then I am married to a Vermonter! I have herbs (basil, parsely and mint) and peppers (jalapenos, Thai chilis, ghost pepers and datils) in containers. They all do fine. I also have lettuce, Swiss chard, spinach and cilantro in a Veg Trug, which sorta kinda counts as a container, right?? Love your posts.
Oh, I forgot, I also grow my potatoes in old metal bushel baskets, usually a red and a yellow variety. I tried blue oness but they did not produce well and so I won’t do them again!
I’ve only grown tomatoes in a pot and would love to learn what else would thrive! Signed up for the newsletter!
I grow a lot (and I mean A LOT) of cherry tomtaoes and peppers in pots. This year, I’m expanding to herbs — I’ve got way more cilantro, parsley, dill, and basil than I will ever use (ok, you can never have enough basil…) which means PICKLES AND SALSA 🙂
I stayed up until 2 am this morning re-potting a massive amount and variety of nightshades, I’m a little giddy 😉
I grow all my tomatoes, some peppers, and most of my herbs in containers.
We have grown tomato, lettuce, strawberry, fig. I’d like to try a lot more this year.
Having spent many years as an urban apartment dweller, I’ve had many a herb gardens in terracotta pots. In fact, some of the herbs I had I transplanted to my parent’s house when I moved back to my home town. This year, I’m trying to grow potatoes in a couple of laundry baskets. So far they seem to be doing well. 🙂
I have grown tomatoes, peas, carrots, lettuce and cucumbers. Would love this book for more info on other veggies.
I’ve grown paste tomatoes, basil, strawberries, parsley, chives, lovage, mint, and carrots in containers. Some with more success than others. 🙂
As summer tends to be very short here in northern Minnesota I grow most of my tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos in containers. That way I can haul them in to the kitchen if it gets too cool.
This year I am growing strawberries in pots in hopes that the slugs won’t get to eat them before I do! We will see how it goes. I also grow my eggplant, peppers and basil in pots in my greenhouse during the summer; they love the extra heat ;0)
Anything and everything. herbs are fun!
we did all our root veggies in containers last year and will continue this year- can move them up on the table at night so the bunnies dont eat them!
Herbs and tomatoes – but would love to expand.
Great giveaway! The food I like to grow (had any luck with in a container LOL) is tomatoes and some herbs. I am a bit of a lazy gardener (which could explain my lack of success) and have found that tomatoes work best for me.
love to grow salad greens close to house for “easy pickin’s”
Herbs and cherry tomatoes. I’d like to do more. I too am a lazy gardener. But I love fresh veggies and would like to do more this year.
All my vegetable and fruits growing in big containers live in tropical island, with great success. Awesome giveaway
Lots of herbs, zucchini and eggplant. This year going to grow peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers 🙂 hooray for spring xo
I’m trying to get organic oak leaf lettuce started in containers on my apartment patio. I have flat leaf parsley, rosemary, and British Wonder peas growing along with several tree seedlings.
Thanks for the great giveaway. I live in an area that has very difficult terrain to plant in so we have to plant all of our food in containers. I plant herbs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, bell peppers, and many more.
herbs and salad greens!
This is my second year that I will be using containers for tomatoes, zucchini, lettuce.
Three years ago, we were caretaking ranch so of course I knew we had to leave eventually. So I invested in 8 half barrels. At the ranch, I tried tomatoes, basil, zucchini and yellow squash, arugula and the chipmunks got all but 1.5 tomatoes, LOL! Oh, I also tried dwarf fruit trees, but they only made it one year.
Last year, in a different place but same barrels, I tried tomatoes again, japanese pumpkins, eggplant, dill, Hubbard squash… and had a small harvest, but nothing did as well as I had hoped. Not sure what I am going to do this year.
Whether it’s the book or just the newsletter, I can use all the help I can get! We grow tomatoes, my young boys love them. It would be so great to have success with anything else!!
I have several raised beds that I grow veggies in, but this year I am planting some cherry tomatoes in containers on our patio. YUMMY…they will more than likely end up being treats for our small flock of chickens 🙂
I grow all of my herbs in pots, (and I grow a lot of them!) I think they do best in pots – and it also means they are closer to the house, so more convenient to run out and harvest a handful when cooking! I also grow a tomato and jalepeno or two (in addition to the ones in the actual garden) and a variety of lettuces! I agree that you really can grow anything in a pot that grows in the ground – so if you don’t have a garden spot, have a container garden!!!
I grow herbs and potatoes in containers alongside my raised beds. I tried tomatoes last year with some success. I would love to learn more about the needs of container plants.
I’ve only done herbs, but I’d like to try some kind of small tree. I live in zone 5a but I have a sunroom so I could move stuff inside for winter. Fig tree? Or is that way too ambitious?
I grow an eggplant as well as peppers and herbs classy black plastic pots to get that soil as warm as possible as soon as possible.
I grow hot peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, tomatillos, herbs, beans, and last year I tried (very poorly) to grow cucumbers in Cambridge, MA. Oh, and I have blueberries, raspberries & black berries growing in the tiny (<3ft wide) side yard along my neighbors driveway.
Herbs and cherry tomatoes.
I just started 3 lettuce bowls – really enjoyed harvesting from them last year, as did my disabled mother-in-law.
Sunflowers! Happiness & joy abound with these eye catching
and happiness exuding plants! I’ve previously grown
Radishes, arugula, spicy mixuna sweet peas & basil too on a city rooftop! Container gardening brings zen to any space! 🙂
I often mix edibles with ornamentals in the patio pots because I never have enough room in the garden for all the veggies we love to eat. Eggplant is one of my favourite too, as I find it prefers the warmer temps on my patio. I like to stick a decorative tripod in and grow purple beans. The flowers are pretty and I like the height. Thanks for including Canadians in this giveaway!
I’ve grown herbs in containers, and tried other crops, like squash, but they didn’t make it in the end. I have strawberries doing well in a stump, though!
we just started our garden all we have so far are chives and a few tomatoes .
This year we”ll grow herbs, lettuce, radishes, flowers in containers. That’s the plan, anyway.
This will be my third year learning container gardening. So far my best crop is potatoes grown in 35-gallon bottomless black garbage cans. I cover their South sides with a reflective material on the days the Seattle sun is out. I’m moving to Ferndale so High Mowing’s container book would be invaluable at least until I can get my new in-ground garden growing. I have no idea where you find the time to write your informative and entertaining articles – gardeners are so thankful for your shared knowledge. Thank you and Bee careful.
My cucumbers always seem better in the pot than the plot! Also, my ‘mojito’ mint is contained in a pot, so so I don’t worry about it taking over but always have a fresh supply!
I have been reading your blog for over a year now, enjoying and appreciating all the gardening and now cocktail tips. We are newer gardeners who are into year 2 of our new home with extensive veggie beds, fruit trees and berries. We put up a greenhouse last year and are still trying to figure out the best way to grow all those warm weather crops with some in containers and some in the greenhouse bed. Sounds like the Container Gardening book would help our yields for sure this year! We’ve already got High Mowing starts on our windowsills waiting for warmer nights to move out into the greenhouse. Thanks for your great stories and insights.
I grow just bulbs in containers right now, at 7000 ft altitude, I am finding it hard to get food crops to do well, I hope the newsletter will have some helpful hints. I really enjoy reading your new blogs posts and other readers comments. I learn something different everytime. Thanks for you time
Check out hugelkultur ideas like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldMKsJF3MNY
I’ve tried just about everything at some point. This year I have strawberries, elderberries, currant, spinach, kale, lettuce and herbs, so far.
My wife does decorative plantings in containers around the garden. for example the is a succulent that drapes out of a really large ceramic bowl with a weird fired blue glaze. And a fig tree is in a pot that goes in for the winter. Lots of smaller ceramic and terracotta planting are in the house right now, soon to go out – succulents again like jade.
I’ve live in the land of gophers and silty sand soil, so I’ve been container gardening for years (have a few wire-lined raised beds too). I have good luck with most veggies and strawberries. Thank you for this post!